Keynote Speaker: Professor Peter Charles Taylor

Peter Charles Taylor (PhD, MEd, BSc, DipEd) is Adjunct Professor of Transformative Education at Murdoch University, Australia. His vision for education integrates the Arts and Sciences to develop higher-order capabilities, such as creativity, critical self-reflection, ethical astuteness, and connectedness, which are essential attributes for living and working sustainably in the complex, diverse and contested world of the 21st century. Peter coordinates the International Transformative Educational Research Network (ITERN) which promotes transformative professional development of teachers and students in universities and schools worldwide.

Title
Transformative STEM Educators Embracing the Arts to Develop Students’ Capabilities for Resolving Global Sustainability Crises

Abstract
We are currently experiencing an era – the Anthropocene – that is unprecedented in the history of our planet. Our addiction to fossil fuels and powerful technologies has dangerously altered the Earth’s natural systems, giving rise to well-documented global crises, such as climate change, plastic pollution of the oceans, and tragic loss of biocultural diversity. These crises pose a unique challenge for STEM educators given that STEM disciplinary knowledge and skills are often viewed as the key to solving the world’s economic and environmental problems. A popular view that tends to focus narrowly, however, on students learning objectively about the world out there. Such a restrictive view largely ignores the crucial role education can and should (ethically) play in shaping students’ attitudes and values – their inner worlds – that fuel their creative moral agency for living and working in sustainable ways.

Across the world transformative STEM educators are embracing Arts-based methods to prepare young people with special capabilities and values for actively contributing to the sustainable development of a world in crisis. Examples of these innovative approaches are featured in a new book – Transformative STEAM Education For Sustainable Development -edited by Elisabeth and Peter Taylor, with chapters by transformative STEAM educators in Australia, Nepal, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Thailand and Philipinnes. In this presentation, Peter will outline several of these innovative pedagogical approaches.

Recent Publications

Taylor, E. (L.), & Taylor, P. C. (Eds.) (in press/2022). Transformative STEAM education for sustainable futures: International perspectives and practices. Brill.

Taylor, P. C. (2020). Embracing Arts education to enrich the worldview of STEM teachers. Non|Traditional Research Outcomes (NiTRO). The Australian Council of Deans and Directors of Creative Arts.

Taylor, P. C., & Luitel, B. C. (Eds.) (2019). Research as transformative learning for sustainable futures: Glocal voices and visions. Brill-Sense.

Taylor, P. C., & Medina, M. (2019). Teaching and learning transformative research: Complexity, challenge and change. In P. C. Taylor, & B. C. Luitel (Eds.), Transformative research for sustainable futures: Glocal voices and visions (pp. 39-57). Brill-Sense.

Taylor P. C., & Taylor E. (2019). Transformative STEAM education for sustainable development. In Y. Rahmawati & P.C. Taylor (Eds.), Empowering science and mathematics for global competitiveness (pp. 125-131). Taylor and Francis.

Taylor, E., Taylor, P. C., & Hill, J. (2019). Ethical dilemma story pedagogy: A constructivist approach to values learning and ethical understanding. In Y. Rahmawati & P.C. Taylor (Eds.), Empowering science and mathematics for global competitiveness (pp. 118-124). Taylor and Francis.

Rahmawati, Y., & Taylor, P. C. (2018). The fish becomes aware of the water in which it swims: Revealing the power of culture in shaping teaching identity. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 13(2), 525-537.

Taylor, E. (L.), Taylor, P. C., Aly, A., Karnovsky, S., & Taylor, N. (2017). Beyond Bali: A transformative education approach for developing community resilience to violent extremism. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 37(2), 193-204.